


our own aftermath

by Irrelevancy



Series: badly, I know, but I live [3]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Aftercare, BDSM Hood, Bondage, Coming Untouched, Communication, Earplugs, Explicit Consent, Feathers & Featherplay, Gags, Healing, Heavy BDSM, Insecurity, Jealousy Play, Kink Negotiation, Kinktober 2019, Knifeplay, Leather, M/M, Multi, Pervertibles, Porn with Feelings, Safewords, Sensation Play, Sensory Deprivation, safe gestures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 07:54:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20888702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irrelevancy/pseuds/Irrelevancy
Summary: “Yes, sorry, I just—”Come on, Portgas, you practiced this.“Okay. So remember when you and Sabo asked if there's something I would like to try and explore? Like, he has his pain thing and you have your service thing. I was trying to figure out if there's anything I would like, in that, um, realm. And there kind of is.”For a single Kinktober prompt (sensory deprivation) that gotwayout of hand.





	our own aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> wow i can't believe i wrote the entirety of Second Chances just to create a verse where they just do kinky play all day err day
> 
> CW: please heed the tags! Consent is absolutely established and enforced over and over again, before during and after the scene. See end notes for a more detailed breakdown.

> “There’s a word Trevor once told me about, one he learned from Buford, who served in the navy in Hawaii during the Korean War: kipuka. The piece of land that’s spared after a lava flow runs down the slope of a hill—an island formed from what survives the smallest apocalypse. Before the lava descended, scorching the moss along the hill, that piece of land was insignificant, just another scrap in an endless mass of green. Only by enduring does it earn its name. Lying on the mat with you, I cannot help but want us to be our own kipuka, our own aftermath, visible.”
> 
> \- [Ocean Vuong](https://oceanvuong.tumblr.com/)

It was one of those open sea nights that settled in soft. Dinner had been the usual raucous affair, with a number of Ace's favorites (heaps of carbs and meats on top, as Thatch very well knew), and a barrel of hearty mead had been cracked open and passed around. Marco was back on the ship after one of his patrol circuits, and he had greeted Ace, upon his arrival, with a long, loving, very sweet kiss. Everything aboard the Moby Dick was warm, and the perfect definition of family.

It all served to make Ace even more anxious, later that night, closing the door to Marco's room (well, _their_ room at this point, pretty much) behind him.

“Tired?” Ace opened. Marco had stripped down to just his pants, and was toweling down the evening's mild sweat and dirt. His smile, when he looked back over his shoulder, was casual and unsuspecting.

“No more so than usual yoi,” was the reply, as Marco wrung the towel out one more time, hanging it out to dry on a rack. Ace, in an effort to disguise his foot-shuffling worry, had sat himself down on the bed. When his hands started twisting about themselves though, he had to sit on them too. “How about you?”

“Same. Dinner was nice, so was the drink. But I didn't have too much or anything!” Marco's amused quirk of an eyebrow was, Ace surmised, the appropriate reaction to such seemingly random defensiveness. He needed to recover, quick. “C'mere?”

“Always.”

And wasn't this just the loveliest thing about Marco. Before finding his way into this relationship, Ace had never given too much thought to sex—there had always been more relevant things, and Ace has always found libido easily dismissable (especially aboard ships filled with nosey crewmates who weren't afraid to make fun of you if they overheard _anything_). Which was why he didn't have much by way of expectations. Even if he did though, Ace thought he'd've still been pretty blown away by all the things Marco could, were willing, and _wanted_ to do.

Like this kiss. Guiding, yet obliging. Powerful, yet articulate in its model of power, where the throne was always present to seat Ace. Marco, ever happy to go to his knees.

(There was something perversely thrilling in this, thinking of them not as just Ace and Marco—and Sabo, on his way, as promised by a den den mushi call just that morning—but as Ace, the wildcard rookie who wracked up a bounty like nobody's business and was offered a Shichibukai spot mere _months_ into his debut, and as Marco the Phoenix. Second-in-Command to the Strongest Man in the World, a legend in his own right. Ace had nothing, _nothing_ but love and respect for Pops, but in moments like this, he also quite deviously delighted in the thought that a man of Marco's caliber was here, on his knees, for _Ace_.)

...But Ace was on a mission tonight. No matter how much he was enjoying this, he knew this wasn't the kind of conversation they could have on uneven ground. So he (reluctantly) pulled away from the kiss, then pulled Marco up and onto the bed.

“Something on your mind, yoi?” Marco asked, a little bit of a furrow between his brow now, but still unsuspecting. Ace had pressed himself in close, and was tracing the outline of Marco's tattoo in a nervous gesture.

“There's something I need to tell you, but I don't think you're gonna like it,” he blurted. When he felt the telltale suspension of Marco's breath under his fingers, Ace hurried to add, “it's nothing bad! In fact, it's probably actually good. I think.”

“I'm more than happy to hear what you want to say yoi, you know that,” Marco said carefully, when it became clear Ace was waiting for a response. “But is this something you want to talk to Sabo about first, perhaps?”

“Honestly I wanted to tell you first because I think you'll take it harder than he will.”

“...Alright. Then not to rush you or anything yoi.” Every square inch of Marco has glaciated, and he was clearly trying not to jerk himself out from under Ace's hands. The worst part was, Ace really hadn't been able to think of a better way to do this. “But would you _please_ tell me what's going on already?”

“Yes, sorry, I just—” _Come on, Portgas, you practiced this._ “Okay. So remember when you and Sabo asked if there's something _I_ would like to try and explore? Like, he has his pain thing and you have your service thing. I was trying to figure out if there's anything I would like, in that, um, realm. And there kind of is.”

That was clearly not where Marco expected this conversation to go—his frown now was wholly confused. Knowing Marco, he had probably been anticipating a declaration about how Ace realized the only one he wanted was Sabo, and won't Marco please kindly remove himself from the equation already.

Realizing that, Ace tried to simultaneously kiss and shake some reassurance into Marco (resulting in an uncoordinated clash of teeth that nevertheless did the job, for it got a startled huff of laughter out of Marco).

“I love you, you know that right?” Ace declared in a rush. “So this isn't—There _is_ something I'd like to try, but you need to know I'm _really_ fucking happy with my life, okay? I couldn't be more grateful, to you and Sabo, to Pops, to everybody in the crew, and I swear on my life—okay well maybe not—I swear on my mother's grave that everything's really, really _good_. I have everything I think I can possibly want or need—”

“Ace,” Marco cut him off. His nose was slightly scrunched in focus, as a man used to wearing glasses did when scrutinizing a mess in comprehension. “I need you to explain again, okay yoi?” When the right configuration of words still eluded Ace, Marco offered, “it sounds like you're maybe concerned that whatever you want to try might imply you're unhappy?”

“That I'm ungrateful,” Ace tweaked. “And I'm not, I swear to you.”

“Ace,” Marco repeated, a strange expression on his face as he set a hand on Ace's thigh. “I know that yoi. What we want in the privacy of the bedroom doesn't need to have any bearing on what we want in daily life. I hardly think that every time Sabo asks to be hit in bed he wants us to beat him up during the day.”

“Right, I know that,” Ace said miserably, “but this is different.”

“How, yoi?”

Ace breathed. And breathed and breathed, and Marco just let him. Marco watched him from less than a foot away, with the steady patience of a dedicated listener, willing Ace to find the words to talk to him.

So Ace, having already chosen to embark down this road, summoned up all his stores of courage and faith, and croaked, “well I was reading that book, and I just thought, wouldn't it be nice to not exist?”

Marco's gaze went blank, but Ace gripped the hand still on his thigh hard, keeping things in place.

“They called it,” he said softly, meaning that book, the one Sabo tossed at him with a wink, “sensory deprivation. Said it feels, for some people, like you've simply stopped existing.”

“I just thought,” Ace continued, voice dissipating into something even less than a whisper. A confession, unforgiven. “It might be nice.”

The strength in his grip was disappearing just as quickly as his confidence, and Ace began to shift away. But really, what the hell had he been thinking? Surely Marco, who had gone through two lifetimes and an infinity of sparring with death just to convince Ace to stay alive, wouldn't react well to this casual talk of Ace throwing his life away. _Again._ It was a silly desire to begin with, something miasmic and imprecise in the depth of Ace's mind. At least Sabo had clear-cut needs—hit me until I feel branded by you, or let me hit you until I've tied you to me. Marco was even more straightforward, easily summarized in a single word: _give_. And here was Ace, making a mess of things again with his messy _wants_. He should never have said anything, because he was perfectly happy wasn't he? _Selfish_, to be demanding more, especially something that he knew, he _knew_ would hurt—

“Ace.” A flash of emotional blue—the hand that came to cup Ace's cheek though, was entirely flesh. “_Ace_.”

The kiss that cut off Ace's immediate attempt to apologize was—nothing like Ace expected. Nothing apologetic, nothing horrified, nothing (god forbid) _pitying_. It was actually... hot. Not the most devouring of gestures, but one still thoroughly suffused with want. It was so confusing that Ace had to break away.

“I thought,” he stuttered, “I thought you'd be upset.”

“You said this is a good thing,” Marco pointed out. “Did you mean that?”

“I—Yes. It's not bad, I'm not sad or anything—”

“Then great, yoi. We're on the same page.”

“_Really_?” Ace couldn't help but squawk. He was probably being dreadfully rude but he couldn't care less at this point. “You're turned on by this?”

“Shouldn't I be?” Despite his confident words, Marco still gave away a bit of self-consciousness by scratching the back of his neck, eyes flickering off to the side. “And well, I got quite the rush of endorphins yoi, when I realized you weren't actually breaking up with me.”

“And why the fuck would I break up with you?” Ace growled, not really meaning it as a question at all. Marco, taking the hint, gestured the question away with a slight tilt of his head. His eyes, Ace noticed, were still mostly pupil.

“I'm the predictable one in this equation yoi, you know that. So tell me—” The other great thing about Marco was, when he _promised_ like that, with his whole body, he's never ever failed to give Ace all that was asked for. “—how would you like this done?”

* * *

_Don't_, he had told Marco, _really pay me any attention._

Ace was seated on the bed. The sheets were soft, cleanly fragrant. The inn mattress was surprisingly soft, with a pleasant give beneath his shifting weight. The last hurrah of sunset illuminated the seventh story window, and Ace could see the orange sky, taste the salt of the ocean breeze, hear the call of seabirds.

Marco and Sabo had entered the room together, chatting between themselves. It was their usual pattern of teasing banter, perhaps with the mutual affection dialed slightly higher, all, _but I'm sure that seemed reasonable at the time yoi_, and, _cruel mistress, time. Moving on without you so readily._ There was, of course, the biggest anomaly, in that neither paused in the conversation to acknowledge Ace there on the bed. No big toothy grin from Sabo, no warm acknowledgement from Marco.

But that was the point. Ace silenced his swallow, though still feeling the awkwardness of the motion keenly. Sabo had a large cloth bag slung over one shoulder, which he set at the foot of the bed, glancing only briefly, almost dismissively, at Ace.

Then he took out the pieces of leather.

_Restraints. So I can't move at all_.

“Got what you asked for,” Sabo told Marco, as if speaking about a mundane shopping list, when every piece of restraint he was laying out was tailor-made to Ace's body. Ace was quite impressed, and flattered actually; no tailor had gone anywhere near Ace's body, so Sabo must've placed the order by sheer recall. “These should work, right?”

“Yes, they'll do fine,” Marco answered. His dismissive tone sent a shiver creeping down Ace's spine. A sensation came across Ace like condensation gathering before a mist, preempting fog, a light sprinkle, then a downpour. It was visceral like _temperature_, hovering cold at the small of Ace's back.

The part of him that usually spearheaded his character and actions reared its head in affronted displeasure. He had _fought_, body and soul, against this very fate where his life was shucked of any meaning beyond _the Pirate King's spawn_—yet now he was inviting it to bed? It was akin to baring his neck when the wolves came sniffing, sitting under the tallest sequoia during a thunderstorm. Almost every molecule of him vibrated with the need to bite back, to set himself aflame before anything else could.

…“Almost” being the operative word there. At its core, this was an exercise in faith. He could hand over control of the fire to Sabo and Marco for just the duration of the scene. They would control it _for_ him; burning hasn't felt like unfamiliarity in such a long time, and Ace found himself anticipating the renewed sensation with a thrumming, dynamic chill under his skin.

(But first, he'd have to be rid of all sensation.)

Another source of the chill was the metal bell Sabo had slipped into his hand during the preparation. Its tinny rattles were muffled by Ace's palm, clutching it tight. There was a protruding hoop on one side, which Ace could hold onto and ring if he wanted out. Or, given that Marco would surely take care to position his hands over a hard surface of some sort, he could just drop it. The metal must have already warmed, matching the heat of his skin, but it still felt _other_ in his grip, an exit hatch he was hyper-aware of, each dulled rattle like a little blizzard between his fingers.

“I brought supplies too yoi,” Marco mentioned. His bag was smaller, set on the bedside table behind Ace's range of vision.

“Shall we get to it then?”

At once, both Marco and Sabo sat down on the bed, one in front of and one behind Ace. When he had been left alone earlier after the prep, Ace had defaulted to the most polite position: back straight, hands on his thighs, legs folded neatly under him. Now, Marco's hands were on his hips shifting him back, and Sabo's hands were straightening out his legs. The touches weren't so cold as to be clinical, but they were suffused with a sense of indifference. As if they were repositioning a piece of furniture to better suit their living room.

A shaky exhale escaped from Ace's mouth. Neither Sabo nor Marco acknowledged it.

“How much did you pay for the room then?” Sabo asked, voice pitched over Ace like a gathering storm cloud.

“Don't worry about it yoi.” Pieces of leather were passed up the bed and being wrapped around Ace's forearms and legs. Sabo, in tightening all the straps and buckles, was merely cursory in his inspection of Ace's body—which was so completely opposite of the intensive attention he usually lavished onto Ace that Ace felt a sudden shot of anguish. What has he done, asking for this?

_It might be hard for you both, so... You can tap out too, if you want to, okay? If it gets too much, either of you can just stop the scene. I'll understand._

That was the consideration for outside the scene. Within the scene, it has seeded the exact apprehension it was meant to cultivate. Watching Sabo puzzle over one strange buckle configuration, look up, and stick his tongue out over Ace's shoulder at Marco, who was snickering at his fumbling—it was a beautiful vision of Ace's worst insecurity. _What if they should get along without me? What if, minus me, they continue on together just fine?_

Ace didn't have to explain that one to Marco and Sabo. They _got it,_ the moment Ace told them they should come into the room chatting with each other and ignoring him.

When Sabo turned his back on Ace to secure Ace's ankles to the bottom of the bed, Ace felt—much to his own surprise—the sting of tears in the backs of his eyes. The words though, the yearning for Sabo to just fucking _look_ at him, really look, stuck in his throat. He tightened his grip on the bell.

“Alright,” Marco murmured, drawing Ace's arms above his head and strapping his forearms together lengthwise. There was a series of hoops on the arm cuffs, which could then be attached to the headboard. “I think we're about ready here yoi.”

“Ah,” Sabo said, as if reminded of an important fact. His hands still busy finding the optimal tension for Ace's legs, he stuck out his leg, gesturing to his hip at Marco. “In my pocket.”

“You want me to stick my hand in your pocket?” Marco asked flatly, but not sounding unamused. Sabo's answering grin was cheeky (and passed by Ace altogether).

“As a prelude to sticking other things elsewhere.”

Marco's obliging hand on Sabo was nothing like their hands on Ace. It was playful in extracting the small wooden case from Sabo's pocket, then teasing in its caress down Sabo's inseam. Sabo squirmed, eyes darkening with promise.

Then, still in Ace's range of vision, Marco flicked open the top of the case with his thumb, revealing twin earplugs.

“Heavy duty,” Sabo said proudly. He was still ignoring Ace, but this part of the dialogue was certainly for Ace's benefit, giving him a sense of what to expect. “Some special sea sponge—cleaned, of course—that expands inside the ear. Can't hear a goddamn thing.”

“Very nice yoi.” As Sabo turned his attention to removing Ace's belts (so they wouldn't dig into his skin, once the tension was fully applied), Marco was inserting the earplugs for Ace. It had been a good idea, putting one of them behind him. Ace didn't think either of them—all three of them, for that matter—would be able to do this face-to-face without seeking approval in Ace's eyes.

Then, his hearing was gone. Sabo said something to Marco, but even at this short distance, all Ace could hear was a low muffled hum. He instinctively jerked at the discomfiting sensation, but the cuffs on his legs held tight, and so did his arms above his head. Both Sabo and Marco froze, until Ace forced himself to breathe through the moment's panic, bell still in his palm.

Sabo lifted his head, and looked into Ace's eyes.

It wasn't an expression of emotion. It was barely acknowledgement. It was, mostly, the gesture of a doctor to a patient on the operating table, just before the needle went in. It wasn't communication; it was waiting for Ace's surrender.

_A hood, I think._

Cloth slipped over his head and pulled tight across his face in a single, brutal motion. Marco's fists at either side of his ear—Ace could practically _feel _the strain of the cloth in Marco's grip. His mouth fell open at the sudden shock of smothering, and Marco pulled tighter, until Ace's head was arched as far back as his neck permitted, and the only loose bit of the hood was over the cavity of Ace's mouth, already damp with the condensation from Ace's heaving breaths.

(In the most juxtaposing reminder, Marco also very lightly kissed Ace's knuckles, which were white in their grip of the bell. Obligingly, Ace mimed ringing the bell without actually letting it sound.)

When fingers began probing into his mouth, Ace couldn't help but moan, stark and begging, a sound he only knew existed by the way it vibrated in his throat. Sabo's fingers felt amused, pushing the cloth of the hood flat against Ace's tongue and rubbing behind Ace's teeth as if placating a particularly needy pet with some perfunctory of touches.

Sabo's fingers withdrew, and something round and weighted dragged across his cheek.

_Gag me._

The large rubber ball was inserted between Ace's teeth, forcing his jaw uncomfortably wide. He got a moment of proximity, as Sabo stretched over him to tighten the straps of the gag behind his head, and Ace wanted to nuzzle forward into the familiar warmth of Sabo's chest. Marco's hold kept him at bay though, and the warmth was gone all-too-soon, once both the hood and the gag had been appropriately fastened.

Then there was a discombobulating shift of gravity beneath Ace. Both Sabo and Marco, he realized, have gotten off the bed. There was just _nothing_, for what must've been seconds but felt like minutes. Low frequency vibrations in the air, like they were talking. Like they were flirting. Like they were maybe wrapped in each other's arms, sharing sweet kisses as Ace laid beside them, blinded deafened and gagged. Ace squirmed in protest, and like he was reminded to finish the last step of a task or chore, one of them grabbed hold of Ace's arms, securing them to the top of the bed.

Ace felt the clump of boots on the floor, headed for the door. He felt a moment's silence as the door was opened, then the slight shake of the wooden inn walls as the door was slammed shut.

And then—nothing. Complete utter silence. Pure isolation.

_And then just... put me away. Forget me, like I no longer exist._

Time was a creature that ran so giddily astray sometimes. It was as real as any animal, but one that resisted any attempt at capture, then came right up to your face to gloat when you're bound and helpless. More so than the hood or earplugs or tension-stretched leather cuffs, it was time that wrapped around and distorted Ace's senses. He thought he could taste on the cloth pressed to his tongue the salt of Sabo's fingers. He thought he could still hear the sound of Marco's strength, knuckles creaking around the wrap of cloth by his ears. He thought he could see flashes of blond, smell the oiled metal of a ticking clock.

But no. Of course he couldn't. Ace had been, by his own request, systematically stripped of any way to experience his lovers. He had sought out the creation of a world order where Sabo and Marco, Marco and Sabo existed independently of Portgas D. Ace. Not even the world order where he'd died without Marco's time-defying interference, but a world order where he simply... wasn't. It was thrilling, to be rid of the baggage of his bloodline. It was terrifying, to imagine his lovers enjoying themselves without him.

...It was _arousing_, to imagine his lovers enjoying themselves without him.

Because after all, there was no true escape from his mortal body, and Ace was still hyperaware of the bell in his hand, the leather gripping his body. He was still aware of who put those there. And with that, his thoughts and the strange hovering sensation across his whole body took a decidedly more erotic turn. An image of Marco and Sabo appeared in his mind, so visceral Ace could taste it. He tasted the lust blowing both their pupils big and black. Tasted the perfect fit of Marco's hand over the back of Sabo's neck. Tasted the pressure of Sabo's teeth against the meat of Marco's inner thighs. Ace thought he might have whined into the gag. He couldn't be sure.

And he could _smell_ it too, the salty musk of seams where sensitive skin met sensitive skin, the filthy grinding. For all that it was turning him on to no end, the thought of Marco and Sabo fucking in another room while he was strung aside like this was also _tragic_. It made him want to beg, want to cry for the smallest scrap of acknowledgement. The moment before the hood went on, when Sabo met his eyes, came to Ace's mind. He now knew its second purpose besides assessment—bait. It was a _lure_, impaled on a hook, beckoning Ace's gaped-open mouth. Ace wanted to go willingly, swallow all the sharp edges Sabo had to offer.

Yet—_nothing_. Still absolutely fucking nothing, no sight no sound no goddamn _breeze_ in the well-insulated room. It was making Ace's skin crawl. Where was Marco right now, in Sabo's arms? Between Sabo's legs? Forehead nearly to the ground, at Sabo's _feet_? That script of worship with Ace's name crossed out, Marco would still perform it so fucking _perfectly_, and Sabo—what would Sabo's expression be receiving it? That smirk with the expectant gaze that he wore so well? That apathetic waiting-for-more that he also wore so well? Gods, and Ace was just trussed up here in a corner of the room, no more useful than a footstool or an extra pillow, no tongue or teeth or hands for _anybody's_ use, so it's only right that they've just left him here to gather dust and disappear from memory—

A cool weight suddenly settled on Ace's bare stomach. He thought he might've actually screamed. It was just so _much, _at once; Ace's body couldn't figure out whether the metal was burning or freezing, whether it was too heavy in its press on his flesh or too light in its skittish desire to fall off. But Ace immediately froze. It couldn't fall off. Its presence on Ace's body meant that somebody put it there, which meant that either Sabo or Marco put it there, which meant they were in the room with him—

_We won't actually leave, of course. We'll just make a show of it and slam the door yoi._

—and this was a _task_. This was something they've asked Ace to _do_, simply keep the weight from rolling off the uneven planes of his body. He could _do_ this, and then maybe they would touch him themselves, maybe it'd be the weight of Sabo settling on his legs next, or the warmth of Marco pressed against his torso next—

Even as Ace was trying to steady his breath, the weighted thing on his stomach—long, thin, and cylindrically smooth—was still too unsettled. It rolled off the side of Ace's ribs, leaving behind it a trail of fire and a wave of dread. He's failed in his task. Would they forsake him again? Leave him alone for real this time in abject disappointment?

Then, a torrent of small, round objects was poured onto his chest, each beady _thing_ bouncing right off and scattering. It was both ticklish and _painful_; whoever poured had guided the fall to land around Ace's right nipple, the sensitive flesh smarting at the sudden assault of sensation. Ace could feel through the bed all the beads spilling across the floor, and each little vibration contributed to the vivid _tingling_ up his spine. He was all at once so aroused that he _hurt_.

And he was fully, truly sobbing when the softest gliding tickle made its way up the sole of his foot. Ace wasn't normally ticklish, but this, now? It had him kicking and bucking like he could, he could _force_ that barest sensation into something more substantial, like he could drive whatever implement Sabo or Marco was using straight into the flesh of his foot. But the thing didn't linger, just plied its way up Ace's arch, over the flex of his toes, then onto the top of his foot. And it brushed there, drawing swirling patterns, dragged like river water over sediments, before disappearing. Ace felt—Ace felt _delirious_, frenzied and fevered and on the edge of being broken apart.

He remembered talking about one more thing—

_No. If we're gonna do that, we're taking out the earplugs first._

—Ace jerked in his restraints at the twin hands placed on his shoulders. The touch was light, and didn't let him push into it no matter how much Ace squirmed. Instead, fingers just slipped up the two sides of his hood (and Ace has never felt anything more fucking erotic as that moment of rough fingertips skidding over the rims of his ears), and neatly plucked out the earplugs.

Sound rushed back in, beginning with Ace's own muffled keening. Marco and Sabo's breathing, the creaking of the leather and the squeaking of the mattress with every shift of his body, the way the air seems to whisper among itself—the world was trackable again. Ace could _be_ again, could hear and process and do things about it again.

“Alright love,” Marco murmured by his ear, and Ace nearly cried from how much he's fucking _missed_ Marco's voice. He turned toward the sound, yearning for proximity. And Marco gave it to him, the tantalizing heat of Marco's body right next to his, not yet touching, but _almost_. “Are you ready?”

A weight tapped his abdomen again. Ace was still sensitive as all hell, every nerve ending abuzz, but now that he could hear again, he could ground himself more in the wash of sensory inputs. This new weight was wider and flatter than the last. Cool, but not cold; not metal, but certainly weighted like metal. Metal wrapped in leather?

“Do you still want this?” Sabo asked, tone dulcet and lulling from further down the bed. He must be the one controlling the weighted thing then, turning it slightly at an angle until a rough leather edge rubbed against Ace's skin and—Oh. _Oh_. “Because I do. You asked for it earlier, and I want to give it to you.”

Like a priest's ritualistic tending of a temple, Marco brushed his lips to Ace's hand again. Ace, letting his consciousness surface among the pall of buzzing white noise, maneuvered the bell out, pinched between trembling fingers, before tucking it away in his palm again, all sounds still dulled.

“Good,” Sabo whispered, the sound sinking right through Ace's spine, all the way down to the arches of his feet. “Thank you.”

The metal of the knife sang softly as it was drawn out of the scabbard.

All noises beyond that disappeared completely again, until all that remained in Ace's ears was that vibrating hum, that brush of thick steel against the soft leather lining. There were further vibrations, that might've indicated speech or shifting or motion, but Ace could process none of it. He was waiting. He was waiting for—

The cool edge. An easy, buttery cut. Fire.

Not truly. He was, after all, no longer Fire Fist Ace, no longer any body that had ever been _anything_ outside the confines of this bed. He was the sacrifice splayed on an altar being _given over_ among a wash of sweat and blood. He was an _instrument of use_, something worthy, finally, for the hands that wielded him—

“_Breathe._”

The hand that cupped around his trachea and tipping slightly up—Ace could only obey, sucking in a loud, ragged breath around gag, through the soaked-through hood.

There were mirroring sensations on his stomach, one tickling trickle away from the burning core of the wound, the other gliding towards it. It was the same feeling that had been on his foot, insubstantial and curiously licking. A little warmer still than Ace's feverish skin. It circled around and around the cut until Ace found his body completely giving way to violent trembling. It was a combination of the lightweight sensation and the release of Ace's previous rigid, unbreathing tension. His back shivered when it touched the bedsheets, which had gone cool in the time Ace had been arched up.

And then, the thing—_the feather, it must be_—paused on the end of the cut where the knife had started, and started dragging _across_ the split skin and—there were no ragged edges the cut had been clean so why did it feel like the feather was catching on the edges licking like flames into the wound but with none of the burning and oh, _oh, _it was _Marco's_ feather—

The noise that tore itself out of Ace's throat was _jagged_, as the healing flames sunk into his skin, disappearing together with the cut until flesh was wholly pristine again—but Ace could still feel it. He didn't think he could be anything _more_ than this now, this vivid set of feelings: Sabo's knife, Marco's flames, his whole body so stringently wrapped up for them, by them, ceded completely to them. The violation of knife-edge in skin, but such a pretty, loving cut—then Marco's powers, the part of him that _sank_ into Ace—

Ace was hard. Had been, for a while probably, but Ace hadn't exactly been keeping track, too involved with the flood of other, much more unprecedented sensations. Now though, he could feel it, every bit of sensitivity coagulating and rushing in a current under his flesh until—just one small, incognizant shift of his hips and a brush against the rough material of his pants—Ace was shaking all over again, this time in orgasm. He could feel his toes curling, his fingers clenching, and that bell and its constant dull rattling in his hand.

_Breathe_.

“We're going to release you now.”

_Breathe_.

“I'm taking the gag out now.”

_Breathe._

“Just the hood left, and your eyes. Ready?”

—_Open._

When the cloth left his eyes (slightly sticking, soaked through with sweat? Tears?), Ace gingerly blinked back into the room, now covered with dusk. He genuinely had no idea how much time passed, only felt the ache of his whole body like he had fought a good fight.

Marco and Sabo's faces, above him, was a welcomed view. Ace truly felt himself melting at the sight, going loose-limbed with the sheer pleasure of seeing his lovers again, seeing their eyes on him, intent and a little bit worried.

He held out a still-shaky hand, gesturing for them to join him on the bed.

Sabo, with all his athletic prowess, managed to fling himself over the bed onto Ace's other side without making the motion too startling for Ace's still sensitive senses. Marco moved a bit more sedatedly, brushing aside something on the bed before settling in, but nonetheless was lying parallel with Ace at the same time Sabo did. With his lovers now bracketing him, Ace knew, with a disquieting pang, what he craved—and now, with his limbs free and body whole again, he could _do it_. He could reach, and grasp, and covet. He could pull Sabo's willing body almost fully over his own like a heavy blanket, could pull Marco forward by the shirtfront and inhale all that sea-salt skin. He could surround himself, _bury_ himself in the sight, scent, and sounds of his lovers, could taste, could feel.

“Well that was,” Sabo started, voice soft as it helped pull Ace back into the world, “intense.”

“What the hell did you pour on me?” Ace croaked, needing to work his raw throat around the words.

“Ball bearings,” Marco replied sheepishly, gesturing to one by his hand that had lingered on the bed, before flicking it away. It hit the hardwood ground with a solid clatter before skittering into a corner. “Was it okay yoi?”

_Anything. Surprise me._

“Yeah, it was good,” Ace replied, slightly embarrassed.His fingers protested as he pried loose his grip around the bell, letting it fall onto the bed with a happy little chime. “And the first thing...?”

“Marco's fountain pen,” Sabo answered. “You've always liked that thing.”

Ace burrowed deeper into both their arms with a muttered _shut up_. Chuckles vibrated warm from their chests, all pressed together.

“Let me get you some water yoi,” Marco offered, slightly untangling one hand. The contact with the cooler air of the room left Ace feeling a bit disconcerted, but the discomfort in his throat helped him bear it. Sabo, behind him, brushed a palm against Ace's stomach.

“How about a tissue while we're at it?”

Ace groaned, embarrassment building. “_God_, I can't believe I came in my pants like a fucking teenager—”

“It was hot.” Ace could feel Sabo's shrug, and also the press of Sabo's hips from behind. “We didn't even touch you.”

“You two haven't—You want to—?”

Marco chose that moment to feed the mouth of a water bottle between Ace's lips. The water was a balm, even more gentle sensations for Ace to feel through his body.

“Nah, we're good,” Sabo said, happily nuzzling Ace's shoulder. “Later maybe, but it's not important.”

“Mmh,” Marco hummed in agreement, gradually righting the bottle again once it was emptied. “More important yoi, is how that was for you. All of it.”

“It was good. Very good.” Licking his lips, Ace continued, “but maybe not like, a frequent thing. It's pretty exhausting.”

“Okay good,” Sabo exhaled. “I am _glad_ to hear that.”

“Was it—Did you not—?”

“Oh no, it was great for me too! I had a wonderful time. Marco, though. He was very stressed out.”

“Uh-huh,” Marco, flatly. “Tell us more about how 'I' was stressed out.”

“I think it was the whole don't-look-at-you-don't-acknowledge-you thing,” Sabo said conspiratorially, curling his fingers loosely into Ace's hair. His other hand—the one that Ace had gathered, along with one of Marco's, to curl around in front of his chest—flicked idly at Marco's. “He's pretty stupidly smitten with you, you know? It might've been the hardest thing he's ever done in his life.”

Warily, Ace lifted his head.

“Hey, I'm sorry if it was a lot, we really don't have to—”

“No, no, look at him now!” Sabo was, all at once, literally nose-to-nose with Ace, gaze firm and earnest. “Had a great time watching you fall apart and enjoy yourself throughout, didn't he?” Then, a playful smooch on Ace's lips. “You know how Marco gets all emo sometimes. He'll be fine.”

“Oh, good to know, yoi.”

As Ace snickered at Marco's beleaguered tone, he glanced up at Marco now, still self-conscious.

“Really though, how did you feel about it?”

Marco, when he met Ace's eyes, looked indulgently satisfied. His gaze trailed communicatively down to Ace's abdomen, fixing on where the cut had been—no, where his feather had gone into Ace's body—and darkened appreciatively.

“It was lovely.”

“That is _not_ how you use a Devil Fruit's powers,” Sabo whispered, octopusing still around Ace. “He is a pervert.”

“It was literally your idea, yoi.”

“Sure, but your face did that _thing_ when I took the feather, didn't you? Who knew being plucked like a chicken would turn him on—”

“Okay,” Marco interrupted loudly, “then no knives or healing or any of that stuff for you then, Sabo, is that right?”

“Now hold on,” Sabo said, after a long, trailing beat. “I didn't say_ that_.”

“Who's the pervert now,” said Marco toward Ace, that characteristic fondness in the roll of his eyes.

And this, all this, settled on top of Ace, making contact with every surface. It was an attentive touch, certain in its exertion of pressure that was neither too much or too little. It was loving, and loved back.

A kiss on the crown of his head, a thumb circling smoothly over his knuckles. Tangling feet and synching heartbeats. The bell sat silent on the sheets by his temple, and Ace settled into gentle sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> CW: Ace asks for and directs a sensory deprivation scene in which he is completely immobilized, hooded and gagged with earplugs in. He is given a bell to drop as a safe gesture, and is repeatedly reminded of it throughout play. The scene includes intentional depersonalization where Ace asks Marco and Sabo to not acknowledge his existence, and then to pretend to leave the room once he was bound. Ace's experience of this involves his personal insecurities (but that's what he wanted). Then they engage in surface, non-penetrative sensation play with a metal pen, ball bearings, and one of Marco's feathers. Then there's briefly knifeplay, where Sabo makes a shallow cut on Ace's stomach, then heals it with Marco's feather.
> 
> During the aftercare, they all check in and Sabo reveals the depersonalization part was a bit stressful for him, but assures everybody it's fine. That Sabo and Marco can also opt out of and end the scene was established prior to play.
> 
> ...In other news, I'm now taking prompts for [kinktober](https://touchmycoat.tumblr.com/tagged/kinktober-2019) 'cause at this fucking rate, I'm gonna run out of kinks by the end of the week.


End file.
